If they bribed individuals, no tax deduction.

If the "bribe" was $200k to a sports program, then it was tax deductible. But at the same time, the university or college got the money so it was a contribution to a non-profit. The only argument against it is that you're supposed to offset the value of your contribution by the value of what you got in return. Donate $80 to your local non-profit radio station and get a $10 mug in return, you get to claim $80 - $10 = $70.

Now, what the value of "admission" is, when you continue to pay all the tuition and fees, I can't say.

But the report about tax deductions was, "If the bribes and kick backs were tax deductible, then ..."

The "if" statement is called the protasis and makes the utterance into a contingency; think of that as a dependency relation. The "then" statement is the apodosis. It's easy to forget that there is a protasis and then firmly remember the apodosis as a simple statement of fact.